Maybe she was. She probably thought he would…what? See something kinky and slink away so he could go nurse his hang-ups?
He allowed himself to imagine being there, with her. Heat rushed through him. Nope. No shame. No guilt. Those emotions had left him paralyzed for far too long. It was time to fucking live his life.
But that didn’t mean he could forget the people who depended on him. “Hang on one second.”
Switching lines, he called Ben. His brother picked up on the second ring. “Manscapers.”
Jacob’s eye twitched. God, he hated the name of their business. “I need you to stay with Kati tonight.” His words tumbled over each other.
“Uh…why?”
“You know how you and Connor were talking about clearing my plate for me? I need you to do that. Come over and spend the night. One of you. Both of you. I don’t care.”
“Okay,” Ben said slowly. “Sure. No problem.”
“Great. I have to leave at six. Kati and her boyfriend will be here about eight. Her bedroom door needs to be open,and don’t let the boy stay past her curfew. Lights out at eleven.”
“Wait, what boyfrie—?”
“Bye.” Jacob switched lines. “Hey.”
“Generally when I invite guests to orgies, they don’t put me on hold.”
“Generally when you invite guests to orgies, they probably don’t need to procure a babysitter for the night.”
She clucked her tongue, suddenly sounding more like the woman who had sat across from him in her office for the past couple of weeks, and less the femme fatale. “You’re getting a seventeen-year-old a babysitter? Ugh. Give that kid a break.”
“Her new boyfriend’s coming over to study. There’s a reasonable amount of freedom, and then there’s being a wholly irresponsible guardian, and I’m not the latter.” A swell of relief sank over him at the accuracy of the words, the truth in them. “I’m not.”
She was silent for a moment, her words quiet when she spoke. “No, you’re not.”
Jacob took a deep breath. “And to answer your question, yes. I’ll be there tonight.”
She cleared her throat. “Good. That’s…great.”
“I’m not so easily scared off,” he told her gently. “I can see why you might think that, but you don’t know what’s in my brain. In my fantasies.”
“In those fantasies of yours,” she asked with devastating bluntness, “do you fuck in front of other people? Because that’s what tonight entails.”
His chest expanded. He stared at the invitation until the embossed lettering blurred. “Would it be you?”
Silence. “Would it be me what?”
“Would it be you I would be…?” He trailed off. Not because he was ashamed of the word, but because he might combust if he allowed himself to complete the thought.
She whispered the directive to him, like the devil on his shoulder she was. “Say it.”
He breathed the word. “Fucking.”
Her husky reply told him he wasn’t the only one affected. “Maybe. Or maybe it would be others. Or maybe it would be me and others.”
“Any of it.” He closed his eyes. “I want all of it. And none of it will change the way I think of you.”
“Come to my party,” she finally replied. “And we’ll see what thoughts you have left by morning.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jacob pulled up outside Akira’s mansion a little before seven that night. The winding driveway along the side of the home was already filled with luxury cars, his Toyota looking sadly practical amidst the glitz. In all the years he had lived in this city, he had never been to Billionaires Row quite so many times in the space of a couple weeks.
